Reflections
by Ben Barrett
Summary: Stan looks back on the worst mistake of his life. Slash. Style. Oneshot.


**A Note From Ben: This story has special significance, though I won't tell you why. Those it applies to will understand. For the rest of you, I hope this oneshot will tide you over until I can get the next chap of RB2 up. Sorry about the delay.**

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Disclaimer: I don't own South Park or any of the songs used in this story.

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**Reflections**

by Ben Barrett

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_

I'm sorry I'm bad, I'm sorry you're blue  
I'm sorry 'bout all the things I said to you  
And I know I can't take it back  
I love how you kiss, I love all of your sounds  
And baby the way you make my world go 'round  
And I just wanted to say I'm sorry.

_-Sorry, _Buckcherry

* * *

Stan sat in his bedroom on the edge of his single-sized bed, staring down at his legs dangling an inch off the floor. Life had sure given him some rough knocks in his twenty-something years. No, that was fucking bullshit. Most of the rough knocks he'd received had been due to his own bad decisions, not simply because life was out to get him. That might have worked on him a year or two ago, and he would have embraced the opportunity to have a pity-party with great enthusiasm, throwing himself into his misery like a pig throws itself into a hole filled with mud.

_This is all my fault. Every last bit of it. What the hell is wrong with me?  
_

He brought the palms of his hands up to his face, as if inspecting them for some great hidden truth there beside his life line. He found none, of course, and his hands began to shake too bad for him to leave them that way. He brought them down and cupped him knees with them, bracing himself for the guilt trips that his own reflections always brought. Sometimes they came so strong that he found himself mumbling things under his breath, almost against his will, just to get the shards of glass in his skull to leave him alone. There had been many a moment on city buses, libraries, government offices, and the like where he found himself brought to shame by someone's look of reproach at the cursing he hadn't even realized he was doing.

There was one memory in particular, one that almost made him want to put a bullet in his head, that he tried not to bring up- ever. Of course, the human mind was especially cruel that way. The one thing he wanted to not think about was the one thing that popped up the most. It was as if the cerebellum itself was designed by Cosmic Hands for pure torture. Where the hell were the memories of childhood puppies? Where was the laughter? Where were the tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago?

_Fucking Andy Williams, that son of a bitch. Fucking fucking fucking..._

"Fucking shit asshole," he mumbled under his breath. "Cocksucker nutjob. Why the fuck won't it all go away?"

He was doing it again. That random talk that came when unpleasant things set down root in his mind and refused to budge. That nearly unstoppable muttering that made him sound like he was suffering from Tourette's Syndrome. Oh, and this one

(_kyle kyle kyle kyle KYLE_)

was a doozy. He'd be feeling the effects of this one for quite some time. He knew no matter what he did, this was likely to fester for what could be weeks. His work performance would be affected, dragging him down, and he'd probably get fired again. It certainly wouldn't be the last time. He'd get snappy as time crawled slowly on, or he'd get quiet and mopey and would eventually speak only when he had to. He'd probably start chain smoking again as a result, which would mean he'd burn through two packs a day during all of this.

_I can't afford that, but what can I do?_

He didn't want to do these things, didn't want to mope around and act so self-centered. At this point, he knew everything that happened had been his fault. He couldn't blame anyone else for all of the garbage from his childhood to now that he had to relive nearly every day. Still, it would all drag him down. He couldn't help it. It was as if there was just suddenly a big rock tied to him that he couldn't shed, a huge fucking thing the size of one of King Kong's nuts that would grind and grind and grind and grind and....

He shook this off and flopped back onto the bed. He looked up at the ceiling, counting the holes in the tiles for what seemed like the thousandth time since he'd scraped up the money for this little shithole apartment. The way things were going, he would not be able to scrape up the money for another month. A couple of weeks and he'd be back to the missions and substance abuse programs, telling himself this time he'd get his shit together and work hard and not let things

(_drown_)

burden him. This time, he'd become the responsible, respectable citizen he really wanted to be deep down. Then, he'd get somebody to take him in, maybe his parents or a friend somewhere. He'd do good for a little while, make a little money, get some nice things like a cell phone and a computer.

_Then I'll fall apart again._

He knew that any security he might get would only be temporary. Eventually, he'd be right back where he is now and the whole process would start over again. It was a vicious cycle that he felt he was powerless to change.

"I want to be a good citizen," he said softly. "I want to do something with my life. I just don't know how to _not _be this way."

He had a horrible fear of this lasting the rest of his life, of him turning into one of those old winos with no teeth who approach complete strangers begging for change. The ones with the tattered clothes and yellow eyes who smell of old piss and cheap booze. You looked at those old men and realized with sinking horror that they had a very dismal future. They'd be found one day in some alley or doorway, stiff and dead and still reeking of booze. They'd be thrown in some Potter's Field courtesy of the state and forgotten.

Stan had higher aspirations than that. He wanted to be remembered by someone when his time came. He wanted to think that his funeral would be attended by flocks of people with lots of good things to say about him. People would shake hands and talk about what a remarkable Stan Marsh really was. They'd mention all the books he'd written, and what a fine estate he'd left his

(_kyle_)

spouse and children. They'd be secure the rest of their lives because of the great worth of the beloved Stan Marsh.

Oh, how he wished for that. He wanted to be an author more than anything. He wanted to walk into a bookstore and see a display with his name on it. He would love for someone to walk up to him and say "Hey, aren't you Stan Marsh?" and when he responded that he was, they'd tell him how they loved his writing and would he be willing to sign their copy of his newest novel? The problem was, there was no "newest novel". He hadn't written anything. He'd finished something that _could _have been a book once, a fanfiction novella that people really seemed to enjoy, and had been in the process of converting it into an original story when...

"All hell broke loose."

* * *

_Stan was feeling as optimistic as he ever had about things. The first story was complete, and he was consulting Kyle on ideas for a sequel. Everyone he asked for the honest truth told him yes, he really could make it as an author if he wanted to break out of the fanfiction loop and get paid for what he did. He seemed on top of the world and the world seemed happy, for once, to have him there. There was nothing he couldn't do, no challenge he couldn't overcome. With Kyle by his side, he felt invincible, like he'd finally made it. The destiny he'd always felt calling him was finally within reach._

_Then, of course, the snowstorm came. It was a real _whammer_, and the world outside Stan's window was pure white for days. He couldn't see anything, couldn't go anywhere, and couldn't contact anybody. The powder was far too deep to try and get through, and it had taken out first the cable and internet, then the phones, and finally the power itself. Still it kept falling, falling, falling. It was relentless, heartless, and completely evil. Stan Marsh had lived in Colorado his entire life, but he'd never really _hated _snow until that day._

_"Fuck this shit," he said, sitting in the dark. His only source of light was a small candle he had burning on his bedside table, and that was only worth something if you picked it up and carried it with you everywhere you went. Not that there was really any reason to go anywhere, of course. Most of his movement consisted of journeys down the hallway to piss (where he learned quick that it's best to set the candle down somewhere while you do this, lest the hot wax drip down upon thine dangly bits and smite thee, yea verily)._

_He picked up his notebook, full of scribbles and pages upon pages of single paragraphs. Writing stories by hand just wasn't the same, and it was a pain in the ass doing it by candlelight. He really preferred a keyboard and monitor to that old manual method. With a keyboard, his hands didn't cramp up and he could type so fast that he could more or less have the words on the screen as they came to his mind. It was like thinking things into existence, then having them flow down your arms and out your fingers into a form everyone could enjoy._

_He looked out the window for what seemed like the thousandth time in the last five minutes, feeling himself get more and more pissed as the snow continued to fall. Why the hell wouldn't it stop? When the hell was this nightmare going to end so they could get on with their lives?_

_When Stan thinks back on this, he isn't sure if it's here that the snow causes part of the roof to collapse, or if it was a bit later, while he was down the hall conversing with Shelley on something. Regardless, it was more than just a calamity brought about by the worst storm in decades. It was also a physical representation of the happiness and security he'd allowed himself to feel crumbling into dust. It was at that moment_- that very moment-_ that whatever life he'd known before the storm hit came to an abrupt end._

_The insurance agents and FEMA reps will later tell Stan and his family that the collapse was due to a hole in the roof. Some large bird or long-ago thunderstorm had torn away sections of the attic roof. This had allowed the snow to come in through the hole and pile up on the sheetrock that made up the ceilings. As it became more and more saturated with moisture, it grew weaker. Still, the snow kept piling on and piling on and piling on until it eventually collapsed, first in his room, then in Shelley's room and the bathroom._

_Stan's mother flips out. She is determined that they leave the house that _VERY MINUTE_, no longer giving a tin shit about how high the snow is piled up outside. They can't stay in the house anymore, so what choice do they have? They'll go to Conifer, to her sister's house, she says. They'll be safe there._

_It was the worst place in the world they could have gone._

* * *

It was a month after that incident that he pawned his precious laptop. He'd given up a four hundred dollar computer for one twenty-five, looking for money. He'd thought at the time that such a small amount would be easy to come up with, that he'd have it back in no time. As the months dragged on, however, he had become more frantic. His key to his lifelong dream and the possible key to breaking this cycle was on that thing, and the idea that it could wind up in someone else's hands filled him with horror.

"I remember typing every word of that," he said, a slight smile forming on his face. Just thinking about those better days made the emotional rock weighing him down seem a little bit lighter. "It really was the best thing I've ever done."

And this was true. Everyone had made such a fuss over it, telling him what a great writer he was. He had accepted this praise happily, loving the fact that for once in his life he was doing something that meant something to someone. For once, he was doing something to make people happy. There were folks who sent him email messages, gushing over how they'd started and couldn't stop, how they'd stayed up all night reading and had to crawl into bed afterwards. All the readers told him how talented they thought he was, how they looked forward to more from him...

"So why can't I do it anymore?" he mumbled miserably. "Where is my muse? Why the FUCK can't I just sit down and write for more than five minutes?"

It was an empty question. He already knew the answer, as surely as he knew he was worthless. He couldn't write because his "muse", his wellsprig of creativity, was gone. Kyle, the one who'd always been the voice of reason, the one who'd always give him feedback as he was writing, the one who told him whether an idea was good or bad. Kyle really was, in the words of that sappy old Bette Midler song, the wind beneath his wings. Without him, Stan could not fly. He was grounded, seemingly doomed to write only angsty short stories that were more

(_crap_)

autobiography than anything else.

Now what kind of writer only writes his own experience disgused as fiction? One not worth a good God damn, that's what. Where the hell was the originality? Where was the creativity? Oh sure, you can write a really convincing and enthralling chapter on falling down a well and being stuck there if you fell down a well as a child. All you have to do is recall the old fear and the thoughts racing through your head. What if the story doesn't call for someone falling down a well, though? What if you have a character that's, say, skydiving? Stan had never been skydiving and wouldn't know the first thing about describing it. He could fall upon the old standard "The ground came rushing toward him", but that was about as creative as "We looked and we saw him step in on the mat. We looked and we saw him: the Cat in the Hat".

Stan just had to face facts. The cold, hard truth

(_cold and hard as penguin cock_)

was that he was _nothing _without Kyle. He was just a second-rate has-been that had one success and would never know another.

"It's all my fault," he moaned again, feeling himself on the verge of tears. "My fault. _My fault..._"

* * *

_The family welcomed them in with open arms. It was unreal what had happened to them, and they'd be more than happy to help them get back on their feet. Stan's cousin, a strange character with a great love of the demon weed, was the most enthusiastic of all. He expressed such joy at having them in the house and brought Stan into his social circle immediately. This circle consisted mostly of stoners like himself, but they took to Stan as one of their own. Stan found this rather comforting considering he was completely cut off from all of his other friends, especially Kyle. So, when they offered him the pipe, he did something his upbringing told him not to do, and took a hit._

_The first few times he did it, Stan felt as though the entire world as he understood it was not only a bare-faced lie, but a very bland and uninteresting bare-faced lie. Everything was so alive and beautiful, and the _colors! _God, the colors were everywhere. They were in the trees, in the words he spoke, even in the faces of his friends and the strange geometric shapes he saw dancing before his eyes. He would often try and catch these fanciful shapes or attempt to make new ones by moving his hands. This always caused laughter in the circle, which in turn made Stan laugh and forget what he'd been doing in the first place._

_After that happy and psychadelic effect no longer seemed to work anymore, Stan wanted to get stronger stuff, more expensive stuff, to recapture that rollercoaster feeling and make the world seem interesting again._

_Of course, in his mind, he never saw this as destructive behavior. It was just a fun, albeit sometimes expensive, way to pass the time. He believed everything his cousin told him about ganja not being addictive ("It's not addictive, because it has no addictive substance in it") and happily went along with the collective opinion when he was told that alcohol was _FAR WORSE, _and that what they were doing was just something people had been doing since the beginning of time. _

_He continued to believe this even after he no longer had no reason to "pass the time". __The ice melted, the roads opened, and all the utilities and luxuries returned. Still, he continued to live each and every day that he could completely wasted. When they couldn't get Mary Jane to come to the party, they'd find a way to get alcohol (not a one of them ever noticing the hypocrisy of such an action). Stan's mother began to harp on him and tell him he needed to clean himself up. Shouldn't he be going back to work? Shouldn't he be contacting people and letting them know he was okay?_

_"Come on, Stan," she told him. "You've had your fun, now let's grow up and move on."_

_Yet Stan ignored her, just like he'd start ignoring Kyle. Days went by and Stan barely thought of his old friend at all. Why should he? He was trashed and enjoying every minute of it, and all the things from what he had come to refer to as his "old life" no longer seemed important._

* * *

Stan got up and stormed from the room, the racing thoughts in his own head causing random garbage to spew from his mouth as he walked. Each step was met with a new obscenity, thus making it appear (if anyone had been there to observe this pathetic freakshow) that he was swearing in time. FUCK-_STOMP_-SHIT-_STOMP_-ASSHOLE-_STOMP_-COCK-_STOMP_-COCK-_STOMP_-ASSCOCK!

_I don't want to remember this shit. Why the hell won't the flow stop? Why can't I turn it off?_

Memories were like that, though. Once you opened that spigot and things started pouring out full blast, it was nearly impossible to make it stop again. The only way to end it was to let it run its course. Stan knew this from experience, but still insisted that it was _his _brain God damn it and why the hell should _his _brain be doing things he wasn't commanding it to do? _He _was in charge of his own fucking body, and it had no right to just do whatever the hell it wanted to like this!

He walked down the hallway toward the front door of his apartment. It was nearly 8:00, and he had something he had to attend to. A completely mandatory, not optional, his-very-fucking-life-depends-on-it kind of thing. He closed the door and marched down the hallway, ignoring the greetings of his neighbors completely as he made his way toward the parking lot. He wasn't looking forward to this little bit of unpleasant business, but of course he never did. Ever. He kept telling himself that he eventually would, that if given enough time he'd adjust and be perfectly fine, but he was starting to believe it less and less.

_You can only believe a lie for so long. I know bullshit when I smell it._

The honest truth was, Stan didn't know if he'd _ever _be happy again, no matter where he went or what he did. He had known love and joy for a brief period of time, and now that it was gone everything else seemed to pale in comparison. He'd even enjoyed his little job at the gas station outside of South Park, believe it or not. It was hard to imagine anyone enjoying cleaning gas pumps and scrubbing bathrooms, but he had been. Kyle had been part of his life then, and it made everything he did more rewarding. He told Kyle that he was saving money so that they could have a life together some day, and doing it all for Kyle made it seem...well, like a privilege, not a job.

He still remembered those cool days in the spring when he'd don his headphones and go out with a big smile on his face to clean the grime off the gas pumps. Michael Buble would come on and his heart would swell with such genuine affection for the one he loved. _Lost _was probably the one that hit him deepest. Not the first verse necessarily, because it spoke more of a broken relationship. The rest of the song, however, were the exact words that his heart spoke to Kyle each and every day, the words that he himself couldn't articulate. They went something like this:

_'Cause you are not alone  
I'm always there with you  
And we'll get lost together  
Till the light comes pouring through  
'Cause when you feel like you're done  
And the darkness has won  
Babe, you're not lost  
When your world's crashing down  
And you can't bear the thought  
I said, babe, you're not lost  
__  
_

Sometimes these words would hit him so hard that he'd feel the tears threaten to come and he'd have to regain his composure. It really wouldn't have been a good thing to lose all control of himself and start with the waterworks right there in the Chevron parking lot, not with all of those people watching. God, in a town as small as the one he lived in, he never would have been able to live it down. No matter where he went, whether it was the grocery store, the post office, or the local Subway, he'd know that everyone was thinking the same thing: "There's the guy who started crying at the gas station".

Of course, this happy phase of his life didn't last as long as his imagination sometimes suggested that it did. He sometimes had to remind himself that the whole Chevron chapter didn't last months or years. It lasted _maybe_ a month and a half, at best. After that, the winds started to change in his life. He once again pulled the Jekyll-Hyde switch and fucked things up. Suddenly, his hours and little paychecks weren't enough anymore. Suddenly, though Stan wouldn't have been able to tell you exactly why, the idea that he was just working so he could gradually build a life for himself and his beloved didn't hold water.

"It's fine, Stan," Kyle would often tell him. "You're doing what you can."

But words never turned Mr. Hyde back into Dr. Jekyll. Once the transformation takes place, the monster is in complete control and will do whatever the hell it wants to do. No amount of reassurance from Kyle could convince him that $7.50 an hour at twenty hours a week was enough. He suddenly needed _more _money and _more _hours, because his job was suddenly pitiful.

Looking back on it some months later, Stan realized that this was really where things began to unravel. Oh, it would be a good bit of time before the freak storm that drove him away from his love and into the arms of Mary Jane, but everything starts somewhere. A "domino effect", if you will. This is where the first domino was pushed over, setting everything in motion.

_

* * *

Somewhere in the back of Stan's mind, a nagging voice kept telling him to get in touch with Kyle, if only just to let him know that he was still alive. Kyle was no doubt worried about him, probably worried to fucking death. Still, Stan ignored it. He was too fried to care about much of anything, and hadn't Kyle himself stated on more than one occasion that they didn't necessarily have to talk every day? Hadn't he worried so much on those days _before _the storm about not giving Kyle attention each and every day that Kyle had finally put his foot down and told him that it wasn't that big a deal. He'd told Stan quite clearly that he worried way too fucking much._

_Whatever was driving Stan in these days, whatever was shaping and molding his twisted logic through all the booze and pot smoke, it took this conversation with Kyle and ran with it. It blew it up to unimaginable proportions, telling Stan whenever his thoughts cleared enough to think back on his love that it was okay, that it wasn't that big a deal and he didn't need to talk to Kyle each and every day. It was a dreadful trick, one spawned in the fiery pits of hell, and it worked._

_A good two weeks went by before he could summon up the courage to finally bite the bullet and face Kyle's wrath head-on. Even then, he went in reluctantly and only because his cousin had noticed what he was doing and prompted him to deal with his relationship. Of course, Stan was a coward with way too many substances fogging up his brain. It was suddenly a much better idea to just cut all ties with Kyle altogether. Stan would look back on this after he sobered up and wonder what the hell he was thinking, but by then it was far too late._

_"I've been worried about you," Kyle said, genuine happiness in his voice. Even though he was talking to Stan through a good sixty miles of telephone wire, Stan could almost see him smiling._

_"Yeah, sorry," Stan replied. "Things have been hell."_

_Kyle noticed the gruffness in his voice and the happiness went out of his own._

_"Is everything okay?"_

_"Not really," Stan said, twirling the phone cord around his finger and wishing he had the money to get more booze._

_"What's the matter?"_

_The genuine concern Kyle was showing may as well have been directed at a brick wall, for all the notice Stan took of it._

_"I don't think we should be together anymore."_

_"What?!" Kyle exclaimed, shocked. "What the hell brought this on?"_

_"I barely ever talk to you anymore," Stan explained. "You deserve better than this."_

_That was an excuse and some part of Stan knew it. Some bigger part of Stan, though, knew he wanted to get high again, and the sooner they got this over with the sooner he could do that. Besides, he really wasn't feeling the words he was saying. He was just regurgitating words he'd been fed through television and books, things he _thought _would sound right. He didn't even realize it at the time, but all the things he'd been told about hard drugs (and by this point there _had _been harder things than pot and booze; _much _harder) turning people into shells who only care about getting their next fix was absolutely true. He'd become a classic junkie, exchanging things like love, compassion, desire, and understanding for a mind trip._

_"Nonsense," Kyle said, shrugging off this excuse. "You treat me fine, and I told you that you don't have to talk to me every day."_

_"I haven't talked to you at all in weeks," Stan replied. "I just...can't keep treating you this way."_

_Another lie. Another excuse. It's like the old saying goes: Everyone has an excuse like everyone has an asshole, and they all stink. This one, though, didn't just stink; it reeked of bullshit, and Kyle obviously smelled it._

_"Look, if you want to break up, I can't stop you," he said. "This hurts, but I guess your mind is made up."_

_"It is."_

_When Stan put the phone back on the hook and walked away, some faint glimmer of sanity pierced through the fog and screamed _

(WHAT HAVE YOU DONE)

_at him. He paused for a moment and let that glimmer grow ever so slightly, wondering for the briefest period of time if it was too late too call back and undo what he'd just done. It occured to him at that point that Kyle hadn't shed a tear over him, nor had he tried very hard to stop him. It did _NOT _occur to him, however, that Kyle's lack of emotion may have been a product of what was left of his imagination, nor did he even stop to think that Kyle may have gone off by himself to shed whatever tears he had to shed over it. All he saw was Kyle not caring what he did, Kyle not caring if he lived or died, Kyle wishing he'd hurry up and get off the phone and stop bothering him._

_He shrugged all this off and went out to get high. There was fresh grass in the pipe, but their circle was large and it wouldn't last long._

_

* * *

_

Stan sat in a very different kind of circle these days. Most of the people he saw on a daily basis were old-school stoners or alcoholics for sure, just like him. The big difference was now they were trying to deal with their problems. Now they sat in a circle not to get wasted or blitzed, but to admit that they had a problem and try to deal with it on a day-by-day basis.

"Hi, I'm Stan," he said. "I'm an alcoholic and an addict."

"Hi, Stan," the group chanted back to him.

As he began to go through the story of his experiences, his mind drifted back to Kyle. He was the one issue that he never dealt with in _any _meeting. He could talk in great detail of his foolish use of Marijuana, of how that led to Ecstasy and the inevitable loss of his job in an economy where there were no jobs left. He could go on and on and on about how he'd ruined his life by doing things he'd sworn he'd never do. He was a graduate of the fucking DARE program, after all; he knew better.

The one thing he couldn't mention, the one thing he could barely stand to _think _about was Kyle. Quite often, he found his mind drifting during meetings, going back to those good days when they'd been happy and in love, when his life had been as close to perfect as one can get on Earth, and when he'd never needed anything else but his beloved by his side. It always left him feeling melancholy and depressed, and people sometimes told him he'd never make it in AA with his attitude, that he'd relapse if he didn't change his way of thinking.

_Oh, but they don't understand. It's not my attitude that's the problem. Not anymore. It's the _memories _that are the problem. That's what always gets me._

These days, he could take or leave the mind-altering substances. Using that shit had cost him far too much. He never really felt any danger of relapsing. He went to AA meetings because the people there understood what he'd done, what he'd been through, and they understood the pain of loss.

_I just can't tell them about Kyle. Not yet._

Maybe some day he'd be able to look back on it and it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe. As it stood, though, trading what he had with Kyle, which could have been forever, for a good time was the worst mistake of his life. Some people look their whole lives for a meaningful relationship, one that could last a lifetime. There are fewer and fewer people growing old together, sitting in their rocking chairs and reflecting on all the time they've had. Stan had a feeling he could have had that with Kyle.

So, as is his custom, Stan sits in his meeting, says the Lord's Prayer at the end, and goes home in silence. He showers and climbs into his bed, knowing that at 4:30 in the morning, he'll have to get up and start all over again. That's a good six hours, off though. Until then, he'll continue to repeat in his head how sorry he is, how wrong he was, and hope that somewhere out there, Kyle will hear it. He'll eventually drift off to sleep with Kyle on his mind. There will be no dreams, though. Thankfully, the dreams don't come and he gets a little peace. He doesn't have to deal with the guilt or the rapid, endless stream of guilty flashbacks that makes him swear like a drunken sailor. For now, there is the quiet of the void, and for him that's enough.


End file.
